The Hero Complex
by ijustwanttodestroy
Summary: "What do you mean you have no quirk?" "Well," Red Robin says, a little confused by the question. "I mean that I have no quirk. None of us do." "Damn straight," Red Hood says. "You superpowered bitches ain't got nothing on me." [BNHA AU. Series of stories of the Bats screwing around in the hero world.]
1. Chapter 1

"What do you mean you have no quirk?"

"Well," Red Robin says, a little confused by the question. "I mean that I have no quirk. None of us do."

"Damn straight," Red Hood says. "You superpowered bitches ain't got nothing on me."

"Do excuse my brother," Red Robin sighs regretfully. "He was adopted."

"We are _all_ adopted."

"But," Conner says, sounding lost. "Nightwing — "

"Ah. A common misconception."

"His quirk is staying friends with his exes," Red Hood, whom is lounging in his chair, says. He has both his legs on the table, and he is munching on Red Robin's fries shamelessly. He looks out of place, in the middle of the meticulous, all white cafeteria, with his antics and leather jacket and boots. And his red hood. Which looks pretty ridiculous, as Conner had pointed out earlier, and Red Hood had replied, 'I know. It drives Batman crazy, LOL' Red Hood had said LOL out loud.

Nightwing has stated in interviews — many interviews, due to his booming popularity despite the fact that he is not yet a pro, and will not be graduating UA for another school year — that he is quirkless. Unabashedly so. But this claim has been met, often, by disbelief, due to his show of great prowess.

"But," Conner says, frowning.

"Listen, man," Red Hood says, inbetween chews. "When you have guns —"

"Nuh-uh," Red Robin tells him disapprovally. "Gun violence, Hood."

"Right. When you have these fists," Red Hood holds his fists out — Conner can see the scars webbed all over his knuckles. "It's enough. It's all in your heart, man. You just gotta have courage. You just have to believe. Believe it."

"Was that Naruto?" Red Robin glances at his — his brother, apparently — behind the domino mask.

"Yes. Believe it."

"But," Conner says, still trying to process things. "How did you — how did you pass the entrance exam?" Red Robin had scored first place. Conner second.

"Hm," Red Robin says.

Conner blinks. Realization dawns on him. "You hacked the Villain Bots, didn't you?"

"There is _technically_ no rules against it," Red Robin says, and Red Hood snorts.

"You mean," Conner frowns. "You surpassed UA's cyber security system?" distantly he feels that he should be alarmed by the fact that a fourteen year old has accomplished such a feat against the biggest and most elite hero institute in the world.

"That's enough, boys."

Red Robin and Red Hood and Superboy jump in their seats. Nightwing smiles sweetly at them. "Spoiling family secrets?" and to Superbooy, he says, almost off-handedly, "don't believe _everything_ they told you."

Conner blinks.

"B's pretty pissed you hacked Red Hood inside, he wants to talk to you guys," Nightwing says, boredom in his voice. Red Robin shrugs flippantly in response, and Red Hood scoffs derisively. "I don't appreciate being utilized as your messenger nanny. _Good job_ on manipulating the camera feeds, though."

"It's pretty easy," Red Robin says, though he sounds far too pleased as he visibly preens under Nightwing's compliment. Nightwing smirks almost proudly for a split second before slipping back to his unimpressed facade.

"You shouldn't have done that," he chides. Though he doesn't sound like he cares that much of the fact that his brother has smuggled an illegal vigilante, whom is _also_ his brother, to supposedly one of the most guarded location in the country. "Now off you go — yes, you _too,_ Hood, If you want a security pass to enter UA, you can always _ask,_ you know that, right? — now," Nightwing turns to Conner as the two Reds walk away in silence, one of whom flipping Nightwing a middle finger. Other students watch them, half because the Bats are always garnering attention to themselves no matter where they go, and partly because Red Hood is an illegal vigilante who has no jurisdictions whatsoever of being here. And is probably, potentially dangerous. Not that Conner really cares — being invulnerable aside, he has decided that he has an inordinate amount of trust towards Red Robin. If Red Robin declares Red Hood harmless, then he is so.

"What _have_ my cute little brothers told you, Superboy?" Nightwing has his hands on his hips. The mask clashes strangely with his UA uniform. Like Red Robin, he has this air of being incongruously proper. He looks strangely formal, like a masquerade ball's attendant stumbling into the cafeteria.

"All of you are quirkless."

It shouldn't surprise Conner as much as it does. After all, the Bat is quirkless — like Nightwing, he has stated so himself — only once — and had also been met with utter disbelief. _The_ Batman, one of the top three heroes in the world? The Batman, the hero who has sparked numerous debates of vigilantism, who has asserted himself implicitly of being completely outside the Law — and has only recently been accepted by governing institutes, albeit with an amount of suspicion and fear, only after he became a member of the Justice League — the Bat, who has explicitly stated that he has no shit to give about the press? The Batman, who is borderline a non-human, a mythos, a legend?

And who, quite literally, has stopped the end of the world a dozen times — _quirkless_?

The very definition of _unbelievable_.

There is no rules in UA that prohibits a quirkless child to apply as its student— but even so, the amount of quirkless applicants to succeed is down to zero. And the first quirkless student to pass the entrance exam for the first time — former alias Robin, now Nightwing — had managed to do so for the first time in _two decades_ , three years ago. And while at it, he had managed to score first place.

It had been considered — nearly scandalously — a miracle.

And only this year, Red Robin, another quirkless member of the Bat's, had been the first one to pass in three years after his predecessor. And had also — unanticipatedly, what with his skinny, wiry figure, and pale I-never-see-the-sun pallor — scored first place.

It's a little hard to believe that the Bats are quirkless. Conner thinks it's pretty justified.

"Everyone knows that," Nightwing dismisses with a wave of a gloved hand. "What else?"

"You are brothers. Adopted," Nightwing face remains blank. If it troubles him in any way, it doesn't show. "Is Batman your adoptive father?" Conner asks, seriously and clearly, completely out of curiosity.

"Classified," Nightwing declares, though Conner suspects behind those stoic mask, his eyes are twinkling in humor, if the twitch of his lips is anything to go by. Red Robin and Nightwing are two of the small percentage of UA's resident who dons a mask — who, like Batman, hides their identity. Conner supposes the two correlates. If there is ever a key to reveal Batman's secrets, it's them.

Conner finds the length they go to hide their identities, to a certain degree, incomprehensible. Most heroes nowadays do not care for such things — secret identities are essentially retro. Although, considering his upbringing as a genetically modified clone, he wouldn't have the knowledge and sympathy — Red Robin has mentioned that sympathy is needed to understand certain things — to comprehend that. He should inquire Red Robin more of this matter. He has find Red Robin more than satisfactory in laying out explanations. Other people usually just looks at him with a strange expression and says that 'it's just the way it is', a statement which Conner finds frustratingly inadequate.

Though Conner is half sure that the answer would be — and this is because most of Conner's questions in the past year has been answered with this particular remark — that the Bat is paranoid.

Nightwing watches him, head tilting to the side. "Keep in mind what I said earlier," he says, "and do excuse me, for I have to make sure that my brothers are still alive!" he adds cheerfully, and leaves with an elegant flourish. Eyes follow Nightwing's figure as he strides along the hall. But unlike Red Robin and the Bat, Nightwing receives a different kind of attention. Especially from girls. Conner finds that he himself often receives such attention of the same kind. He doesn't understand the meaning of that either.

He should also inquire Red Robin of this matter later.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, well, well," Nightwing says, sounding entirely too merry. "Would you look at this, Red Robin."

"What do we have here, Nightwing!" Red Robin plops his head to visibility from behind Nightwing's back, looking awfully tiny it's almost adorable. "Oh me, oh my. A _murder_."

"Stop that," Kid Flash tells them. "Just stop that."

"It's no use," Artemis says. "They probably have like, a favorite massacre or something."

"Belcher Islands, 1941," Red Robin cheerily supplies. "Classic."

"Meh," Nightwing says. He crouches on the ground, eyes squinting from behind his mask for a better look at the scene. "Cults are overrated."

"Hah! You only say that because you almost got brainwashed into one."

"You almost got _what?"_

 _"_ Brainwashed into one," Red Robin informs Kid Flash helpfully, his words matter of factly. "They wanted to make him like, their own personal assassin or something. It was wild."

"What?"

"Yeah, it was pretty wild," Nightwing supports the statement. Which does not help Wally's case at all.

"What," Kid Flash says.

Nightwing makes a dismissive motion with his hand. Kid Flash makes a mental note to ask him about this later.

"I've notified GA," Artemis says, typing on her communicator. "He'll be here in five."

"Sweet," Red Robin says. He scurries around the body. "COD. Race you," he tells Nightwing.

"Isn't that obvious?" Kid Flash interjects. He doesn't really like looking at corpses — something that he should fix, due to his choice of … future occupation — but it's _pretty_ telling. "He was shot?"

Red Robin shakes his head solemnly. "Ah," he sighs. "How very _naive_ of you, young man."

"You are literally four years younger than me."

"How naive!" Red Robin continues.

"Ignore him," Artemis says. "Millennials are all like that."

"Actually, I'm Generation Z. _You're_ the Millennial."

Artemis glares. "Nightwing, why is your brother such a smartass?"

"You just answered your own question," Nightwing says. He is now, like Red Robin, scurrying around the body. "Hm. This is sloppy."

"Amateur work," Red Robin agrees. "No other sign of trauma …"

"Yeah, he was _shot_ ," Kid Flash says, amost incredulously. Both Bats look up at him, somehow channeling judgement even with half their faces non-visible. "Right?" he looks to Artemis for support. Artemis shrugs, looking very apathetic. She's seen this scene unfold too many times to really care about the Bats' fascination of dead bodies.

"KF," Nightwing prompts him. "Come look at this."

"No," Kid Flash says. He sighs. "Fine," he walks and crouch down beside Nightwing, if a little non-consensually. Kid Flash turns the other way. "Is this even allowed?" he hisses half-heartedly. "Aren't you messing with the crime scene, here, or whatever?"

"No, we are not," Nightwing says, his focus entirely on the body. "You see this, bro?"

Kid Flash grimaces. "Kind of hard _not_ to see that, _bro_."

"If he were alive when he was shot, the powder tattooing would've been red. Brownish, orange-ish, at some cases. But these are more yellow than anything."

 _What the hell is powder tattooing_ , Kid Flash thinks, but he does not voice it out and needlessly reveals that he hasn't been listening in lessons at all. And all those times Nightwing lectures him about forensic science. "So he was dead before he was shot."

"Yep."

"A gold star for you!" Red Robin says.

Kid Flash squints at Red Robin, standing from the crouch, taking the chance not to look at the corpse a second longer than he has to. "It's like having two _dicks_ here."

Nightwing turns to glare at him.

Kid Flash isn't even sorry. "Metaphorically."

Nightwing rolls his eyes, somehow able to convey that gesture with behind the opaque white lenses. "Time of death?"

"Eh.." Red Robin tilts his head the other way. "Two hours max, I'd say." Nightwing hums in agreement.

"Handgun," Red Robin says, unperturbed by the gruesomeness of the scene. "Near shot."

"Can't be more than a metre," Nightwing agrees. "Five visible entry wounds."

"He was shot five times," Artemis says thoughtfully. "And he was already _dead_. That's … excessive."

"Malice," Nightwing says, contemplatively.

"The perpretrator knows the victim," Red Robin suggests.

"Possibly," Nightwing adds idly. "Possibly," Red Robin repeats concedingly. "Asphyxiation, you think?"

Nightwing moves forward, and tilt his head to get a better look of the victim's eyes. Red Robin follows suit.

"Blood vessels intact," Red Robin examines, sounding disappointed.

"No signs of neck trauma, either." Nightwing replies. "Homicidal smothering is a good bet — that, or some kind of suffocation Quirk."

"Ahh," Red Robin says, nodding, sounding like a student receiving a lecture from his teacher.

Kid Flash watches them, feeling like he's going to puke any moment. He looks at Artemis pleadingly. Artemis rolls her eyes. "Let them do their freaky Bat thing," she says. The Bats love murders. It's freaky.

Red Robin tilts his head. "Two perpetrators," he declares.

Nightwing grins. "Smart boy," he says, and Red Robin cheers.

"What?" Kid Flash looks at the criime scene, squinting, expecting the answer to pop out at any given moment. "How do you know that?"

"Well," Red Robin turns and beams at him, like it's Christmas. "You see — "

"Green Arrow," Artemis raises her voice, having had enough of the murder talk. " _Finally_."

Green Arrow takes a look at the body, then at Nightwing, then Red Robin, then Kid Flash, and finally, Artemis. He says, in disbelief, and some mix of annoyance and horror, " _again_?"

Kid Flash should really consider stop going to patrol with any of the Bats.

* * *

"That's a — " Nightwing tilts his head and squints. "De Kooning?"

" _De Kooning_?" Robin repeats, with an entirely unecessary amount of disgust. He turns to look at Nightwing in heated disdain. " _De Kooning?_ That's a _Kandinsky_ , you uneducated neanderthal."

Nightwing shrugs. "My speciality is Medieval art, not abstract expressionism."

"Nerds," Red Hood sneers.

" _You're_ one to talk," Red Robin shoots at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh please, like _you_ are one to — "

"Every single one of us are nerds," Nightwing cuts, which is responded by some conceding _eh. "_ Red Robin, what's B's ETA?"

"Six thirty."

Nightwing sighs. "We just wanted to get a smoothie. Why do we always get all the _murders_?"

"Hey," Red Hood says. "Getting murdered is _my_ thing."

"We are probably cursed," Red Robin suggests, not with a small amount of humor. "Like, death follows us everywhere typa thing. Everyone we love will _die_!"

"How _dare_ you," Red Hood, who is very offended, says. "I'll have you know, this topic is very sensitive for me — "

"We get it, Hood," Robin, who is very insensitive, says. "You died. Get over it."

"Fuck you."

"The true measure of a shinobi is not how he lives, but how he dies," Red Robin, who is also insensitive, solemnly says.

"I told you to stop quoting Naruto," Nightwing scolds him. Red Robin shrugs. Nightwing glares at him. "Robin, " he says, "you're going to the base with Red Robin. Red Hood — "

" _What_?" Red Robin and Robin say at the same time, and then glare at each other in harmony.

"Who died and made _you_ boss?" Red Hood says, and then predictably, he says, "oh, right. _Me."_

Nightwing pinches the bridge of his nose, a gesture that is awfully similar to a certain bat themed vigilante. "This was a mistake."

"Why do _I_ have to go back?"

"Why do I have to go back with _him_?"

They both glare at each other for several more heated seconds and then, together, glare at Nightwing in a terribly similar way.

"Nightwing, I do not _need_ a babysitter!"

"And I don't want to babysit _him_! _"_

"This is a homicide," Nightwing says. "A _themed_ homicide. A modern art-themed homicide. If it has a theme, then it's probably bad. Need I remind you that the both of you do not have a license — "

"Need I remind _you,_ that I have been trained to be the leader of the _League of Assassins — "_

 _"Red Hood_ doesn't have a license — "

"Robin, you are _ten_ , and Red Hood — "

" — can do whatever the fuck he wants," Red Hood finishes. Nightwing stares at him and then makes an _eh, what the hell_ gesture. "Yeah, that, whatever," Nightwing says. He points a finger at Red Hood. "Except for _killing people_. _And_ I _know_ you've been stealing champagnes from the kitchen, Hood — "

"And so do I," says Batman, who just fell from the sky and now is looming before the four of them. "Hello, boys," says Wonder Woman from behind him.

They stare in silence. Nightwing sighs.

"Whoa," says Red Robin, in a very excited tone of voice, "were you guys on a _date_?"

"You were on a _date_?" Red Hood and Robin say, at the same time, in a very dismayed tone of voice.

"Hello, Aunt Di," says Nightwing.

"No," Batman says.

"Yes," Wonder Woman says. She has a sunflower slipped behind her left ear. "It was surprisingly quite romantic."

They stare at Batman, who looks as stiff as a cardboard. "It was not a date," Batman says. And then he stares Robin down. "I told you not to patrol."

"He isn't patrolling," Nightwing defends. "He's just taking a stroll. With a costume."

Wonder Woman raises an eyebrow, appraising Robin up and down. "And a _scimitar_ ," she says, implementing one of her many Quirks: X-ray vision. "And a _saif_. Five hand grenades. Ten smoke bombs. Kevlar armory. "

"I have a duty," Robin says, chin rising dignifiedly. "I shall purge crimes from the streets of Gotham."

"He _really_ likes his costumes," Nightwing says.

"Red Robin, go to base with Robin," Batman says.

Nightwing, like Batman, has his hands on his hips and turn to look at both boys in question. In face of two identical poses, both Robins express their disdain by rolling their eyes simultaneously — somehow able to convey that particular gesture even with their masks on — and shoot their grapples to the Batplane hovering overhead.

"Use the autopilot!" Nightwing warns. " _No_ driving! I'll _know_ if you do!" Both Robins will bicker and drive the plane themselves nevertheless, but at least he tried.

"Aunt Di," Red Hood says, sincerely and solemnly. "He doesn't deserve you."

"I know," Wonder Woman says breezily. "I'll text you all about it."

"It was not a date," Batman repeats.

Red Hood bows at Wonder Woman with a flourish, flips Batman a middle finger, shoots his grapple to a nearby building and disappears.

Batman raises an imperious eyebrow to Nightwing, somehow able to convey that particular gesture with his mask on.

"We were getting a smoothie," Nightwing tries. "After patrol. Y'know. Brotherly bonding and all."

"Uhuh."

"When, uh." Nightwing gestures to the scene behind him. "Murder."

Silence.

"Again," Batman says, not a question.

"Again," Nightwing agrees.

"Kandinsky," Batman says after a few seconds of instropection, able to identify the painting in reference in the form of arranged body organs and wall paint and blood. Wonder Woman peers curiously behind him. Batman nods at Nightwing. "Hrn. We'll take it from here. Contact the GCPD."

"Aye, Sir, that I did," Nightwing says, apathetically, and a little bored. "Hey, were you really on a date?"

Wonder Woman beams. Batman scowls, shoots Nightwing a _look_.

"He doesn't deserve you," Nightwing says solemnly, and shoots his grapple, disappears into the night and all that.

"I like your children," Wonder Woman tells Batman. Batman says nothing.


End file.
